What fol­lows is an excerpt from my new book Deep Pen­i­ten­tiary 6. DP6 is a campy throw­back to 70’s “women-in-prison” cin­e­ma filled with action, humor, and robes inex­plic­a­bly fly­ing open. In this selec­tion, assas­sin, Theta But­ter­fly, has gone under­cov­er in a secret space prison to locate her miss­ing sis­ter. She is tak­en to Block B where she is intro­duced to her fel­low con­victs and the leader of their pack, Hon­ey Bee.

DP6 is being released as one half of a pulp split-paper­back with Shane Crash. We cur­rent­ly have a Kick­starter cam­paign going to raise funds to print the book. If you pledge to our Kick­starter you can get a copy of the book as well as some oth­er great perks. Thanks for your sup­port!

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Theta land­ed in the mid­dle of the steel deck. She felt the eyes burn­ing into her before she even got to her feet. She sized up the room, mak­ing quick count. Eight women. All wear­ing the same drab gray prison robes and not much else. Which one was in charge? Theta’s eyes fol­lowed the oth­er women’s gaze to the tall Nubian in the mid­dle. Choco­late brown skin, large hang­ing breasts, and a bushy afro that hadn’t been in style for at least two cen­turies. Not very smart in a fight, where the key was to min­i­mize sur­face area. One quick grab and the bitch would be on the floor, minus a hand­ful of those kinky black curls.

The black woman stepped for­ward. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” The oth­er women cir­cled around, but still kept an uneasy dis­tance.

Their leader sneered. “Name’s Hon­ey Bee. I’m the queen bee around here.” Her big hazel eyes drank in the length of Theta. “Who might you be?”

“Just a girl look­ing for her long-lost twin sis­ter.”

Hon­ey looked around at the oth­er women. “Any of you bitch­es miss­ing a sis­ter?” She kicked her head back with a laugh that echoed against the steel walls. The oth­er women joined her laugh­ter. A smirk pulled across the black woman’s face. “I guess that’d be a no. Looks like I’m the only sista around here.”

Theta met her smirk with a cool, casu­al nod. “Damn, that’d be just the kind of unlucky day I’ve been hav­ing.”

“So what does this sis­ter look like?”

“Well con­sid­er­ing she’s a twin, she looks a lot like me.” Theta shot up a fin­ger. “Except for one thing.” All eyes closed in on her, as she pulled back her robe, reveal­ing a tease of her naked form. “She’s got a birth mark right here.” Her fin­ger swept around in a cir­cle, just above her pelvic bone. “It’s cute, it looks like road kill.” She dropped the robe.

The black woman stud­ied her for a bit. “Sor­ry. There’s no one here in this block like that. Maybe you’ll have bet­ter luck with some of the oth­ers.” She extend­ed a hand. “Let me show you around.”

What did she take her for? Theta knew that game. Grab their hand. Pull them close. Bury a shiv deep in their back. “Not today.” Theta refused the out­stretched hand, slid­ing past the black woman, walk­ing fur­ther into the cir­cu­lar room that seemed to serve as a com­mon area. There wasn’t much there: just a few plas­tic chairs, a chess board, some tat­tered romance nov­els, and an antique LED tele­vi­sion play­ing an equal­ly old episode of The Walk­ing Dead.

“Bitch!” Honey’s voice cried out. “This is a small mutha­fuckin’ cell-block, and we don’t have any room for rude­ness.”

“Then maybe you should take a long walk out of a short air­lock.” Theta kept her eyes on the tele­vi­sion, not for the show, but for the faintest reflec­tion of the tall black woman clos­ing behind her, hand tight­ly clasped around a six-inch long piece of sharp steel.

Theta leapt to the side to avoid the charge. She didn’t have to think. It was mus­cle mem­o­ry, although her weak mus­cles weren’t coop­er­at­ing all that well. The jagged piece of met­al caught her robe, tear­ing it open. Oh well, she need­ed to lose it any­way. Too easy to grab onto.

Again the makeshift knife flashed, light­ning quick, toward Theta. The ripped robe was flung toward the fast approach­ing woman as Theta rolled out of the way. She was sur­prised at how quick Hon­ey was. Theta swept up one of the smoke-grey acrylic chairs and held it out in front of her like a lion tamer. It was fit­ting: this jun­gle cat had claws.

Hon­ey stepped back, shiv held up in front of her. Theta cir­cled her with the chair. She quick­ly took a side­long glance at the roar­ing crowd. They kept a dis­tance, some­thing Theta was thank­ful for. If they all went for her at once, she wasn’t sure how many she could take down before they poked her like a pin­cush­ion.

The crowd cheered Hon­ey as she advanced and they jeered the near-naked new girl who blocked anoth­er lunge. The knife cracked against the steel chair leg. The rabid prison women screamed at Theta. “Bitch!” “Ho!”

Theta charged for­ward, chair held out­ward. Hon­ey didn’t flinch. “Come on; come on. Imma cut you down,” she growled. Theta threw all her body for­ward, catch­ing the black woman in the chest and send­ing her sail­ing back­ward to the deck. The chair smashed as it hit the floor, the legs bend­ing out­ward, pin­ning Hon­ey to the ground and knock­ing the shank from her grip.

Theta worked to rip a loose chair leg from the bro­ken seat. Just as she freed it, Hon­ey jolt­ed upwards, knock­ing Theta to the side. Hon­ey grabbed her shiv and brought it down toward Theta. The clang of met­al on met­al rang out as Theta deflect­ed the blow with the chair leg. Her long legs swung upward, kick­ing her oppo­nent in her firm tor­so, send­ing her fly­ing back­wards.

The two women both regained their foot­ing at the same time. Hon­ey held her blade out men­ac­ing­ly. Theta was bal­anced and poised, hold­ing the chair leg with two hands. It wasn’t a sword, the weight was off, it had no edge, but it would have to do.

Hon­ey looked at Theta’s rail thin body, cov­ered only in loose under­wear. “Look at her. Some­one needs to get this bitch a sam­mich.” The ram­bunc­tious crowd snick­ered. Honey’s free hand balled up into a fist held over­head. “How ’bout a knuck­le sand­wich … bitch.”

Hon­ey nod­ded and opened her hand allow­ing the knife to fall to the steel deck. She shoved it with her foot, send­ing it skid­ding over to a pris­on­er with a tall orange mohawk, who picked it up. “You skin­ny bitch. You dead now,” the pris­on­er cack­led at Theta. The assas­sin returned the ges­ture, by throw­ing the chair leg at her. It caught the punk right in the chest, shut­ting her up.

“Was that real­ly nec­es­sary?” Hon­ey held up her fists and cracked her head side to side.

“Yes. I’m a lit­tle sen­si­tive right now.” Theta curled the tips of her fin­gers inward, assum­ing a leop­ard hand posi­tion.

“She does have a big a mouth,” Hon­ey agreed, step­ping for­ward and swing­ing at Theta with a wide right hook. Theta side­stepped and slammed her hand into Honey’s rock hard tor­so. The woman was sur­pris­ing­ly sol­id. Hon­ey didn’t budge, but locked up with Theta, pum­mel­ing the white girl’s already bruised back with her right fist. Theta tried to main­tain her trained focus, but each blow drove the pain deep­er and deep­er into her.

Catch the pain. Ball it up. Com­press it. Let it out. Theta explod­ed, dri­ving her foot into Honey’s shin, knock­ing her back enough to make enough room to deliv­er a cou­ple of fast, focused blows right between her ample breasts. While Hon­ey was stunned and gasp­ing to regain her breath, Theta grabbed the afro and threw her down on the ground. The black woman’s robe flung open as she land­ed on the deck.

Her con­cern wasn’t on her exposed chest, but rather her do. “Oh, I know you didn’t just mess up my hair.” Honey’s eyes nar­rowed.

“Nev­er bring an afro to a fist­fight.” Theta rushed for­ward land­ing on top of her.

The two oppo­nents again locked up and began rolling around on the ground, trad­ing blows. Kick­ing. Punch­ing. Claw­ing. White on black. Black on white. Their ani­mal feroc­i­ty could not be tamed, only stop­ping when a son­ic siren pierced the air.

Theta grabbed her ears to block shrill sound. Hon­ey did the same rolling out from under her. All around them, the pris­on­ers were recoil­ing from the aur­al assault.

As quick­ly as it came the siren clipped short. It was fol­lowed by the clack of stilet­to heels, indi­cat­ing the arrival of the Dark Moth­er. “Is this how you wel­come a new guest?” the war­den demand­ed.

The room didn’t respond. The oth­er women knew bet­ter than to speak. Instead they picked them­selves up and formed a line, heads bowed low star­ing down at bare feet.

The war­den walked over to Theta, still on the ground, and put her boot on her bare chest. Theta groaned as the point­ed stilet­to pressed into her skin. The Dark Moth­er peered down at her with blank white eyes. “And you …” she twist­ed the sharp heel. “Your first day here and already caus­ing trou­ble. Though that shouldn’t sur­prise giv­en your his­to­ry.” The war­den lift­ed her boot and con­tin­ued on across the room. She spoke with author­i­ty. “You all know the rules. You save the fight­ing for the are­na. Your rations will be cut for the next few days.” She stooped low to pick up the dis­card­ed chair leg, exam­in­ing it close­ly. With a swift swing she sent it sail­ing into the tele­vi­sion, shat­ter­ing the screen. “And tele­vi­sion time is offi­cial­ly revoked.” She turned back to leer at Hon­ey and Theta. “Guards, take these two repro­bates to the iso­la­tion hold before I decide to stuff them down the trash chute.”

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